The compound noun, which stretches to 63 letters, is the name of a law relating to the testing of beef.

Tongue-twister: The 63-letter word, which refers to the law regulating the testing of beef, has been dropped from the German language

A regional parliament repealed the word, meaning the 'law for the delegation of monitoring beef labelling', after the EU lifted a recommendation to carry out BSE tests on healthy cattle, theTelegraphreported.

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Germany is notorious for lengthy compound nouns, many of which are gradually whittled down to abbreviations when they become impractically extensive. Germans simply add extra concepts to existing words, meaning that, in theory, a word could become never-ending.

Linguistics expert Professor Anatol Stefanowitsch, from the Free University of Berlin, told German news agency dpa the word was the longest 'authentic' word in the German language.

It is recognised by linguists because it crops up in official texts, although it was never an entry in the German dictionary, which includes words based on their frequency of use.

At 36 letters, Kraftfahrzeug-Haftpflichtversicherung - motor vehicle liability insurance - is thought to be the longest German word with an entry in the dictionary.

The Oxford Dictionary of English can top that; pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis - which describes 'an artificial long word said to mean a lung disease caused by inhaling a very fine ash and sand dust' - has 45 letters.

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis: The 45-letter word is the longest to appear in the English dictionary